July 22, 2014

Not So Victorious Dinner (and a PSA)

Tonight's dinner was not meant for the Victory books, I'm afraid. It all started out well - I prepped and got halfway in to the Pioneer Woman's Mustard Chicken recipe before it all went wrong.

I've made this recipe a ton - it's always been delicious and easy and drama free. Unfortunately tonight was the exception to that rule. I made it through the tough part (in my opinion anyways) of cooking the chicken, sauteed the garlic (smelled amazing!) but somewhere between turning off the burner (since I was dealing with bourbon) and pouring the bourbon into the skillet to glaze the pan -- something went terribly wrong.

At the time it felt like the flames were SUPER high and ENGULFING our kitchen cabinets and OMG WHERE IS THE DOG, and WHY CAN'T I FIND THE EXTINGUISHER (hint: because we don't own one), I somehow yelled for Engineer Husband who came running in and we were able to extinguish it.

Hopefully you have never dealt with a stove top fire but here are a few things that we did that you should NOT do:

- Forget that the right pantry aid is baking soda, not flour.

Because this happens.

And then your dinner, which was smelling really good and just about to start the delicious sauce making phase, will look like this.

You can spot the wet towel that thankfully we did not employ tonight as well.

If you DO find yourself in this situation, use BAKING SODA. Which of course we remembered after we had already doused the flames with what I can only guess is an entire bag of flour.

But it worked, thankfully since our house is intact and we didn't make the fire worse. We were all safe and the chicken that was already cooked was spared and very gently over a low flame worked into another dish so that we could still eat.

So. Please learn from my mistakes. Be super careful cooking with alcohol and if you find yourself in a predicament like me where you're looking for something that you don't own to put out the flames, reach for the baking soda.

Photo Courtesy of ArmandHammer.com

You know you've got a box somewhere! I'm planning on putting some right next to the stove for anytime I decide to cook with booze - which likely will not be for a little while to say the least.

Baking soda.

(Also, in my googling since, it looks like the wet towel would also work but that seems iffy to me since you shouldn't use water. You could also put a lid over the pan and move away from the burner. That sounds like it would work but in the heat of the moment no way would I have been able to find the right lid.)